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| Out of Africa: Roy Hodgson, front row centre, in 1973 |
ROY HODGSON’S Wikipedia entry claims: “Hodgson started his
managerial career in 1976 at the Swedish top division side Halmstad.”
No doubt everyone will be picking that up and using it
tomorrow as the world debates the pros and cons of the 64-year-old West Brom
boss being made England manager ahead of the people's choice, Harry Redknapp.
And they’d be wrong.
I can exclusively reveal Woy (as he is known, for obvious
reasons to anyone who has heard him talk) actually started his coaching career
in Pretoria, South Africa. I should know. I was one of his earliest products in
1974.
Hodgson (note, appointed England manager at 4pm on May 1) arrived a year earlier at my local club in what was
then the whites-only National Football League. Berea Park were a very average
team in a league dominated at the time by foreign players unwelcome in
FIFA-sanctioned countries.
Though Roy was billed as a Crystal Palace star, he had
actually been released by the club and came to Berea as a fairly ordinary
player from non-League Ashton Town after stints at Gravesend and Maidstone
United, then the best non-League side in England.
Still, with Bobby Houghton and Colin Toal, he was one of
three cut-price English footballers who arrived in Pretoria despite the Apartheid
Sports Boycott in 1973. Apart from playing football for Berea professionally,
Roy also tried his hand as a physical education teacher at the local Hillview
High School.
He’d coach our Under 14s occasionally at Berea Park and in
1974 I spent three months training with him twice a week at Brooklyn Primary as
part of a Northern Transvaal Under 13 representative team which included Roy
Wegerle – who went on to play for the United States, Blackburn, Coventry and
QPR – and Noel Cousins – who went on to become South Africa’s most expensive
player when he moved from Arcadia Shepherds to Moroka Swallows in 1984.
Hodgson was a superb youth coach. He taught us to bend our
passes with both feet “like Norman Hunter” and emphasised movement off the
ball. He wasn’t too good at dealing with angry parents – soccer mums, as every
coach knows, are the nemesis of all youth coaches – but he certainly enhanced
our skills on those long afternoons in Brooklyn.
My parting words with Roy? “Sorry son, I don’t think you’re
going to make it as a footballer. Nice long throw though.” Tough, but true. We’ve
talked about it a few times over the years since.
Hodgson and Houghton went on to coach Berea to relegation
that year. The club never really recovered. Then, as a duo, they went to
Sweden. Houghton took Malmo to the European Cup final in 1979, the first – and last
- Swedish side ever to compete in the continental showdown. They lost 1-0 to
Nottingham Forest in Munich.
Hodgson, while helping Houghton, coached nearby Halmstad to
unprecedented heights. Years later, when I interviewed Sven Goran Eriksson
after he got the England job, he admitted Houghton and Hodgson had played a
major role in his coaching career. Sven recalled going to watch both Englishmen
coaching in Sweden in the late 70s and borrowing from their training regimes.
After leaving Sweden in 1980, Hodgson started coaching in
England with Bristol City, then came the many ferries to Scandinavia, with
Oddevold and Orebro before a return to Malmo where he won two league titles and
two cups.
After that came Switzerland, where a job with club side Neuchâtel
Xamax – and a European victory over Real Madrid - was followed by a successful
stint with the Swiss national side.
Inter Milan offered a glimpse of the big time but Hodgson’s
two years there were far from comfortable despite reaching a UEFA Cup final, as
was his stint at Blackburn Rovers as they slumped from title-winners in 1995 to
also-rans under Hodgson by the time he left the club in 1998.
He returned to Inter without great success in 1999, then was
off back to Switzerland’s Grasshoppers Zurich in 2000, followed by a
title-winning season with FC Copenhagen in Denmark.
Italy called again in 2001, a brief “never should have taken
the job” stint with Udinese was followed by international management with the
United Arab Emirates. Then, in 2004, it was off to Scandianivian obscurity with
Viking and Finland before the second coming.
Mohammed Al Fayed, scouring the world for a Fulham boss,
plumped for Hodgson and three strong seasons there saw him move to Liverpool.
Average results and an impatient Kenny Dalglish ended that reign and last year
he moved to West Brom.
Having kept them up, England came calling over the weekend.
The Baggies agreed to let him talk to the FA and Harry Redkapp – the popular
choice – said yesterday: “Good luck to the lad. I’m not one to hold grudges. He’s
a fabulous fellow, Roy. I hope he does well.”
But the truth is of course, Hodgson is a safe pair of hands.
Redknapp, with his tax problems and wheeler-dealer image on top of Tottenham’s
recent slump – Sunday saw their first win since early April – became too much
for the conservative old farts in the FA.
Out of contract in June, Hodgson, though never successful at the bigger clubs, will
do the job quietly and competently. But dear old ‘Arry would have got the
nation roaring before Euro 2012 and caretaker Stuart Pearce migh have been a
better choice.
Hodgson is the easy option. And, given Tottenham’s reported demands
for compensation, a cheaper option.
Personally, I hope Roy succeeds with England where bigger,
better names have failed. And not just because I was there when his coaching
career began 38 years ago.
But I’m not holding my breath.
